My league has been around now for 5 yrs (side note, i've got 3 titles) its been roto, 12 teams, redraft with about the same categories every season, we may tweak it from year to year.

last year: R Hr Rbi Sb K Avg Obp---W L Qs Sv K Era Whip

Didnt love Qs to be honest, but i guess thats a different issue. The main problem I have with the league is really at about all star break or shortly after the bottom 6-7 teams are out of it and lose interest and to a certain degree passion and care about trades, moves etc.

The commish isnt huge on keeper league idea, but i feel like adding some feature of keepers to the league could help bottom of the barrell teams start rebuilding and still caring. Have any of you found this in your keeper leagues? does it help keep the interest alive?

Also what are some of the keeper settings you all have?

I was thinking something like:only keeping the player oncenot being able to keep guys ranked in the top 50 or something so the draft is still real excitingmaybe one keeper has to be like a 1-3rd year guy or something

We have been around 8yrs h2h 12tm Last year we decided to start what I call "semi-keeper". We decided to keep one player drafted after the 10th rd for one yr or FA picked up during yr. Player had to be on your roster at trade dadeline and at years end. One guy im sure will be keeping Greinke another J.Upton and myself J.Werth . It should be interesting and its not difficult.

As new commish for my league which was a 12 team H2H redraft league for years, we moved to a keeper format this past year. Had a lot of the same issues you do, and after talking to a bunch of people here at the cafe and tossing around ideas with my leaguemates we instituted a bracket format for our keepers to keep everyone interested but to also make sure the top guys were available to be drafted each year.

The following is from our league constitution:

Each team must select four keepers who may be kept for two years after their draft year. Essentially, you will then have a player for three years (draft year plus two keeper years). At the end of this three year term, the player must be returned to the player pool for the ensuing year's draft.

Teams may keep players based on brackets:

Rounds 1-4: No players may be keptRounds 5-9: One player may be keptRounds 10-14: One player may be keptRounds 15-19: One player may be keptRounds 20-23 and free agent pick-ups: One player may be kept

Each team must email keeper selections to the league commissioner by the January 30th deadline.

Once a player is traded, their keeper status does not change. For example, Team A drafts Youkilis in 2009 and keeps him for 2010. Technically, he is now in the second year of his three year keeper term. If Team A then trades Youkilis to Team B during the 2010 season, Team B now has Youkilis in year two and can keep him for an additional year, 2011, at his original 5th round value, therefore designated him as Team B's 5th-9th keeper if Team B elects to keep Youkilis at the end of the 2010 season.

Teams should be mindful of the keeper rules and consult the Google spreadsheet when considering trades, adds and drops.

Should a team not have any keeper options in a bracket at the end of the season due to trades or drops, then that manager forfeits their keeper for that bracket.

The draft will be conducted on a pre-determined date, snake-style for 23 rounds.

After the initial draft in 2009, each draft thereafter will only be 19 rounds as each team will already have four keepers in place. After the initial draft year which will slot teams randomly in regards to draft order, each ensuing year the draft will be conducted with the winner of the consolation bracket, the 7th place finisher, getting to choose which draft slot, 1-12, they would like to have. Once that team has selected their spot, draft order slots will be selected by the remaining teams in the following order:

The draft has been arranged this way to place a value on winning the Consolation Bracket and providing an incentive for teams who did not make playoffs to finish their season strong.

It worked pretty well as far as keeping everyone's interest was concerned. We had a few trading deadline blockbusters and teams in the consolation bracket kept it together through the end knowing they were fighting for the #1 pick next year, or Albert Pujols.

I'm excited to see how it goes with the keepers in place, but it was a nice change for us and so far it seems to be working. For what it's worth, we also go 11X11 which is not your typical set-up, but it's what we've always done and it works.

We had the same hesitation in our league about going to keepers... lots of guys didn't want the same superstar players being hoarded for several years and liked the turnover. So we instituted a penalty for keeping a player - you have to forfeit a draft pick 4 rounds higher than where you drafted or kept a guy the previous year (which means you can't keep a guy drafted in Rounds 1-4). So if you draft a guy in the 13th round, you can keep him for a 9th round pick in Year 2, 5th round pick in Year 3, and 1st round pick in Year 4. This has worked out really well - you get rewarded for drafting well in the late rounds, and it gives the guys who are out of the race a chance to build up for the next year.

The other thing we do to try to keep people active is that teams who finish out of the money get a better draft pick for finishing higher in the standings. We pay out the Top 4 teams (who get to draft 9th through 12th the next year), with the 5th place team getting the 1st pick in the draft, 6th place team getting the 2nd pick, and so on.

"The government cannot give to anyone anything that it does not first take from someone else"

my keeper league uses contracts. We keep 10 players. The first season we handed out two 4-year, two 3-year, three 2-year and three 1-year. Every year after that we hand out a max of 5 new contracts (forces us to keep at least 5 contracts) one 4-year, one 3-year, and three 2-year. This way the max a player is kept is 5 years, and that's only a handful of players. Most players turn over every 2-3 years.

I run two leagues. One where we draft the players round-by-round with no keepers. This will be the 20th season. The other is an Auction League were we bid on the players and keep up to eleven each year. This will be the 15th season. The Auction League has contracts. If a player is kept he gets his auction salary the first two years. The third year it is increased by five and every year after that it is increased by ten. This stops an owner from keeping players forever and makes the Auction in the spring have alot of good players. Those that are out of it in July can make trades to strenghten their team for next year. It keeps the interest up for everyone. == The Draft League redrafts all players each spring. This makes the Draft exciting but those that are out of it in July stop playing. This makes it a challenge to keep owners in the league. I much prefer the Auction League. Because it is a Keeper League does not mean you can't come from the bottom to a high position in one year. It is my opinion that you should go to a Auction Keeper league. We only use the NL with eleven owners. If you use MLB for your talent pool, everyone will have a good team and it takes all of the fun out of the league. Just my two cents

This is mostly to bigmck..im commish of a new auction league this year..we're doing keepers, prob max of 5..any ideas for wat happens if an owner picks up a player off free agents then makes him the keeper, should he be able to keep him for very little? Any other ideas for auction keeper leagues?